What I'm Looking For
by Roadkill2580
Summary: Companion to Landslide. Inuyasha waits for Kagome. Character Death


_**I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For**_

_Summary: Companion piece to Landslide. Inuyasha waits for Kagome. Character Death. _

_I have climbed highest mountains  
I have run through the fields  
Only to be with you  
Only to be with you  
I have run  
I have crawled  
I have scaled these city walls  
These city walls  
Only to be with you_

-I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, U2

OooooO

Kagome never told him what, exactly, Japan would suffer through in the next five hundred years. It would have been kind of nice to have that information. Even for a hanyou, the coming years were very harsh. The wars of the humans spurred the youkai into their own wars, tearing down their own dynasty until all that remained of the terrible reign of youkai were myths and legends. Inuyasha was still suffering from the shock that came from Sesshoumaru's death. All his life, Sesshoumaru had been something for Inuyasha to aspire to. It might seem childish, especially for someone as jaded as Inuyasha, but he'd always thought that Sesshoumaru was indestructible. Immortal.

Inuyasha should've realized that if Sesshoumaru could be killed, then certainly Sango and Miroku wouldn't last long in this new, harsher age of war. They had been caught trying to defend a village caught in the cross fire of a youkai battle. Inuyasha himself barely survived that battle. As it was, Inuyasha knew he had a reason to live. Someday, he would be able to see Kagome again. He didn't deserve someone like Kagome, but with all his heart, he desired to be with her. Kagome was the kind of person who should've been untouchable to Inuyasha, but she had always placed herself within easy reach. But time had stolen her away. Inuyasha was a stubborn bastard though. He would wait forever to see Kagome again.

Inuyasha found himself in the company of Kouga and Shippou for a long while. Kouga was the only survivor of the wolf tribes. The loss of his pack brothers had permanently changed something in him, and he too, only lived for the hope of a glimpse of Kagome once more. It was all any of them had, and it was what tied them together.

After the Battle of Sekigahara, Japan was finally united and the era of wars ended. Instead, a new era of oppression began. Youkai were continually being chased down and slaughtered, and Inuyasha, Shippou, and Kouga were forced to don glamour to blend in. The denial of their nature did not come easily to the two youkai, but Inuyasha, a hanyou, was able to give them several tips that made their lives easier. However, life was made difficult again. The three misfits made life as Toyotomi Hideyori's men. They never knew that Hideyori planned an uprising against Tokugawa Ieyasu, or that this uprising would expose them.

The battle was clearly in favor of Tokugawa, and the Toyotomi forces were annihilated. In the midst of battle, Shippou was nearly skewered. He was saved by Kouga, who took the sword meant for Shippou in his throat. Kouga's dying wish was that Inuyasha tell Kagome how much he'd loved her. Shippou was so enraged that he dropped his human illusion and slew dozens of soldiers.

For awhile, Inuyasha and Shippou were forced into hiding, at least until everyone forgot who they were and what they looked like. It had been decades since they had last saw any other youkai. The last the two had heard, they had all fled to the continent, only to meet their death there by their foreign cousins, who didn't appreciate their territory being encroached upon.

For the next 250 years, Shippou and Inuyasha lived precariously, sometimes as daimyo vassals, other times as the lowest of the low, mere beggars on the streets. Increasingly, they found their morals slipping away from them as they detached themselves from the life that came with the reign of the Tokugawa. They let people they could've saved, die, for the sake of keeping their illusions. They made deals with the devil and his spawn just to survive. Sometimes, they acted as their personal bodyguards or killing machines, just to live quietly.

The Bakumatsu was a brief reprieve and another glimpse of hope for Inuyasha and Shippou. It meant that they were only a little more than one hundred years from Kagome, and it could also mean the end of Tokugawa. They both happily joined the Ishin Shishi, and found themselves shafted from Satsuma and Choshu quite often. Finally, they stayed in Kyoto, fighting until they Ikedaya Incident, where the Ishin Shishi split and hid in the corners of Japan. But it wasn't long until they pulled back together, followed by a string of assassinations. The Shinsengumi was beaten down, and Tokugawa finally allowed the Emperor to take power once more. But the revolution had its consequences, and Shippou found himself without an arm after everything was over.

They took to the mountains for a time, recuperating from the years of fighting and acclimatizing themselves to the idea of Kagome being so near. It was 1867, and there were only 130 more years until they could see her again. But in his heart, Inuyasha was quietly despairing. Shippou had remained young and energetic, his face still smooth. But Inuyasha was becoming older, and he sometimes felt an ache in his joints, and he caught himself tracing the lines in his face and gazing at the droop in his ears.

Inuyasha and Shippou enjoyed the new era of equality and peace, but they both groused over the no sword policy, and Inuyasha found himself sealing it away in Mt. Kurama where it would be protected by the holy convent. Shortly after the turn of the century, war found Japan once more, but on an international scale. Japan's role wasn't incredibly large, so Shippou and Inuyasha's lives remained untouched. But it was the events twenty years later that shook Inuyasha to the core. The bombing of Nagasaki killed Shippou and irreversibly damaged Inuyasha with its radiation. Each day, he found himself growing progressively weaker, and he could only hope that his youkai blood would grant him the time needed to reach Kagome.

While he still had time left, Inuyasha roamed Japan once more, imagining traveling with Kagome and feeling the wind on their faces. Inuyasha thought she might like to visit Hokkaido in the summer. It wasn't unbearably hot, like Honshu was, but rather a pleasant warmth. And for the winter, they would take a plane down to Okinawa and enjoy the heat. Inuyasha never would have imagined the way Japan's landscape had changed with the addition of the large cities, and he supposed he should've believed Kagome when she said that humans had built buildings that could touch the sky.

By the time 1997 came around, Inuyasha was nothing more than a shriveled old hanyou, ears so wrinkled they were hidden by his silver hair. He had taken a train back to Tokyo from Kyoto, wheezing the whole trip, feeling his body start to give up on him. He staggered throughout the city, remembering the buildings and how, five hundred years ago, he could dash from end of the metropolis to the other with ease that had astounded Kagome.

Inuyasha coughed into his hand and wiped the ensuing blood on his clothes. Only a little more. Not for the first time, Inuyasha cursed his human blood. If he had been all youkai, this wouldn't have been a problem. He would've healed from Nagasaki, he wouldn't be old...he would be able to have time with Kagome. Inuyasha felt happiness flare in his chest at the sight of familiar shrine steps. He began the arduous task of pulling himself up the stone stairs, feeling his vision swim with each gasp. But time was against him once more. It was time that had stolen Kagome from Inuyasha, and it was time that would continue to prevent him from seeing her once more. Collapsing at the top, Inuyasha could feel his heart fluttering weakly in his chest. He stretched out a hand, praying she could hear. The last thing to leave his lips, the last thing he thought about, was only her.

"Kagome..."

OooOooOooOooOooOoo

_But I still haven't found what I'm looking for_

_But I still haven't found what I'm looking for..._

-I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, U2


End file.
